If you want to go to a conference 45 minutes from your father's house and want to squeeze in a visit at the same time, do you attend the conference first and visit afterwards, or do you have family time right off the bat?  Mark's gut said the latter, and I think he was right, since I wanted to see Daddy more than I wanted to learn at the conference...and some weeks I can't manage even one night away from home.  After a wonderful visit on Friday, I managed to net two whole hours of sleep, and that only came once I gave up on the bed in the guest room and on the quiet and comfortable couch and went to squeeze myself into the back seat of the car.  (Yes, I am the world's weirdest sleeper and really like small spaces.  I should have brought my tent.)

Anyway, that's all a long way of explaining why --- even though Mark and I were itching to hear Tradd's newest talks and to check out the South Carolina Organic Growing Conference --- we only managed to enjoy a delicious lunch there before heading home.  On two hours of sleep, even pastured pigs, medicinal mushrooms, and biointegrated homesteads didn't sound as lovely as returning to the peace and quiet of our own farm.

I did get one of the nicest February tomato plants I've ever seen out of the weekend, though, plus some cuttings and a rooted sprout from Daddy's Brown Turkey fig.  That brings us up to five fig varieties we're trialling for cold hardiness here at the edge of their range.  More on what I'm doing with my new figs in a later post.